THE UNSCRIPTED SEO INTERVIEW WITH:

Simon Schnieders, Founder & CEO of Blue Array SEO

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Simon Schnieders

Simon started his career within the SEO industry two decades ago where he was having a chat with two young chaps in a bar in Miami where he was working. These two chaps mentioned that they was earning a load of money, been given new cars and fancy holidays doing this thing called affiliate marketing, and Simon thought - I want a piece of that.

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Fast forward to today and Simon is the founder & CEO of Blue Array SEO which is the UK's largest specialist SEO agency employing 50+ people who service clients including big brands Zoopla, MailOnline, RAC and GoCardless.

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Simon has a vision of making the SEO industry a better place to work in and many SEOs industry-wide have gone through the Blue Array Academy.

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You might also recognise Simon as the author of the best-selling 'Mastering In-House SEO' book where SEO's who work in-house share their stories and experiences.

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Simon puts his success of Blue Array SEO agency down to being people-first and profit second.

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Watch or listen to our unscripted SEO interview as we go behind the scenes of what it is really like to be a large scale SEO agency owner.

The Unscripted SEO Interview with Simon Schnieders

Watch the interview

Listen to the podcast

(56 minutes long)

The unscripted questions Mark A Preston asked Simon Schnieders

  • How did you get into the SEO industry and when was that, Simon?

  • What has your personal journey been like since you started in the SEO industry?

  • Do you think that starting your SEO career in the affiliate marketing space gave you a good grounding to becoming successful?

  • Your book 'Mastering In-House SEO', why did you want to publish a book relating to in-house SEOs specifically?

  • What makes your Mastering In-House SEO book different from all the other SEO books on the shelf?

  • Are there any key lightbulb moments in your Mastering In-House SEO book?

  • I noticed on your LinkedIn bio, you said that you are the founder of the UK's largest specialist SEO agency. What does the specialist bit mean?

  • When you originally foundered Blue Array SEO agency, what was your vision for it?

  • How have you overcome funding challenges within your agency?

  • What are the key differences with growing your team today opposed to when you foundered the agency?

  • What specific obstacles have you come up against whist growing your SEO agency team?

  • How do you make sure that the customer experience you provide has a seamless flow from the pre-sales to the after-sales and beyond?

  • Do your own team take the same courses and SEO certifications as the ones you offer to the wider SEO community within the Blue Array Academy?

  • Does your internal training and development go into a lot more detail than your public facing Technical SEO Certification and SEO Manager Certification?

  • What do you think has driven the SEO salary hike the industry has recently experienced?

  • Do you think that constant rising SEO salaries are a good thing for the industry?

  • Do you think that some SEOs are being offered stupid money to jump ship to another agency?

  • As an agency owner, what specific challenges have you faced surrounding the SEO salary discussion?

  • With the cost of living constantly going up for everyone and the looming talk of another recession, what do you think the next 12-months is going to look like for the agency world?

  • How has long term client contract commitment changed?

  • From an agency owners perspective, what does your typical day look like?

  • What do you have to go through to keep all your team in a job?

  • Have you self-funded (bootstrapped) the growth of Blue Array SEO agency or did you take investment on?

  • What are the pitfalls of taking investment on to grow an agency?

  • What specific entity/thing allowed you to go from running the agency on your own to now having an in-house management and finance team?

  • Does everyone in your agency contribute towards directly generating revenue?

  • If you had to pick just one main challenge as an agency owner, what would that be?

  • What was the reason for you wanting to setup your LondonSEO Meetup event?

  • What contributed towards your LondonSEO XL conference being so successful?

  • What sort of investment was required for putting on LondonSEO XL conference?

  • As your LondonSEO XL conference was a paid to attend event, did you make any profit?

  • How will, or will the way agencies sell SEO services to clients change in the future?

  • Do you think that AI in this industry will get so sophisticated that SEOs on the ground will no longer be needed?

  • What specifically is SEO creativity?

  • What is the difference between creativity in relation to SEO vs Digital PR?

  • Is there anything the audience can do to help you?

  • Are the certifications you offer within the Blue Array Academy just a recruitment ploy?

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